On a hill far away stood a flaming purple cross

Last night Shannon and I hiked up Mont Royal to see the huge lit cross which dominates the park’s skyline turn purple. No offense meant to any Catholics in the audience, but since it only changes colour when a pope dies some people in town were excited to hear that JP II had fallen very ill last week. It’s a bit of a hike up but was well worth it. After making a wish, Shannon perched on the rack on the back of my bicycle and we coasted back down to a tofu burger stand as dusk fell and the lights of the city twinkled to life around us.

When I got home from today’s French class it was a sunny 15°C so I ran around the apartment ripping down the plastic sheets we had installed over the windows for insulation during the winter, and then opened every window in the place and watched a winter’s worth of stale air swirl over the sills and evaporate in the sunlight. What a great feeling. Who cares if every unpaved bit of land in the city is a mud pit and four month’s accumulation of dog shit has been exposed along the edges of every sidewalk — I love spring!